missed the leading indicator
About once a month, a former Sun director (we'll call him "Frenchy") and I distribute food to poor families in East Palo Alto and east Menlo Park. (The former is an incorporated city, the latter an area of the city of Menlo Park.) Frenchy does this every week.
Starting in the summer, Frenchy and I noted an increase in demand for food--more food sought, for more families. At the same time, on what I thought was a parallel track, the financial news was going bad but was far from today's dark and depressing numbers. Demand for food has continued to increase to the present. I now realize that, even before BLS and Commerce Dept. confirmed our worst fears, these recipient families were "living the stats", as it were.
I surmise that, at the first whiff of a downturn, restaurants and other service businesses pare their staffs. Also, the temporary work--we wealthy residents of the Peninsula hiring mostly Mexican immigrants to do our physical labor--dries up.
While Sun will embark on the just-announced layoffs within weeks, I note that our janitorial staff (services provided by a contractor) had their layoffs announced weeks ago. First hint of bad news and--boom--the hourly-rate people are gone.
There's at least the appearance of a gap between me--white, wealthy, and middle-aged--and those young families with the beautiful smiling kids to whom I dispense food. I watch in grim fascination as my financial assets drain away; the weight of bad news threatens to pierce my bubble. In East Palo Alto, with Dad out looking for work and Mom putting on a brave face, the little ones--giggling, babbling in Spanish--bounce around the feet of Frenchy and me as we unload their food.
